Dr. Jacques Rogge, IOC President. Les McDonald, Sheila
O’Kelly, Rolf Ebeling, Patrice Brunet and Loreen Barnett met with the IOC
President on Friday 21 January at Chateau de Vidy. During the meeting, which
covered many aspects of the Olympic Movement, we made the request to increase
the number of athletes in the triathlon to 75 x 75 for the Beijing Olympic
Games 2008. Dr. Rogge is committed to holding the total number of athletes
to 10,500 and many IFs have asked for either more athletes or more medals.
He did not say “No”, but did say that we will have to convince the
Programme Commission.
Lausanne 2006 LOC: The members of Team ITU present in Lausanne enjoyed a splendid
evening with Claude Thomas, chair of the Lausanne 2006 World Championship
Organising Committee and Sabrina Tramparulo, his charming assistant. Final
details for the elite, junior, U/23, age group and AWAD courses are near completion.
All of the events will take place in d’Ouchy beside the port and we will try
to include a run course through the garden of the Olympic Museum.

Pamela Vipond, Olympic Solidarity (OS): Pamela was a gracious
host and patiently walked us through the 20 global and continental programmes
that Olympic Solidarity offers. The new programmes for the Beijing Olympiad
will be available shortly and the ITU Sport Development will create a template
to assist NFs applying for funding. The Sport Development Team will also work
to enhance funding for ITU projects with OS funds. She also suggested that
the Sport Development Team copy her on all NF project applications so she
can assist with the process. Pamela also granted permission for ITU to use
the Olympic Solidarity logo on our letterhead and as part of our event branding
at ITU events.
Tom Dielen, WADA: Tom emphasised the “education” focus of WADA in
the future, which was very consistent with the future work of ITU Sport Development.
He did caution us that given we are made up of 3 sports that already have
doping problems, i.e., swimming, cycling and track, we have to stay on top
of doping because of the potential for cheating in our sport. He also stated
that “out-of-competition” testing is of paramount importance. We
discussed various methods of ensuring that the athlete location data is current
and agreed that the NFs should be responsible for online updates of athletes
locations. Tom Dielen also stated that Regional Doping Agencies will also
make testing more streamlined and will be easier for us to ensure that both
in-competition and out-of-competition testing are conducted in the appropriate
way. NF Rules have to be compliant with the ITU Doping Rules. All NFs will
be instructed to ensure that their rules are in-line with ITU Rules. Tom advised
ITU that our technical delegates must become more proactive in guaranteeing
that arrangements are made for “in competition” testing. It is not
enough to write it in the contract and then not follow-up to make sure it
happens. Sheila O’Kelly will make sure that this is a strong responsibility
in the TD Checklist.

Kelly Fairweather, IOC Sport Director: We spent a delightful
time with Kelly Fairweather at the IOC Headquarters. We discussed many aspects
of the success of Athens and our Road to Beijing Strategic Plan.

Increasing the Quota for Triathlon: On the topic
of increasing the triathlon quota to 75 x 75, Kelly was cautiously optimistic.
He stated that he would be working with the Programme Commission in March
to finalise the quota for all sports. ITU will prepare a document of rationale
for a major submission to increase the number of triathletes in the Olympic
Games. We have to make our rationale distinct and unique so it stands out
against the submissions from the other IFs.
Beijing Venue: We discussed the need to finalise the venue.
The location close to the Ming Tombs is too far from Beijing, i.e., 1.5 hours
by car. An ITU Team will visit BOCOG in the coming weeks. We are prepared
to look at a less challenging bike course to have the event in the city.
Beijing Competition Manager: We discussed the need to ensure that the most
talented person from our team be appointed to this position. We will build
partnership plan to fast track the development of national technical officials
in China. We will work closely with our good friend Lou da Peng, Vice President
of IAAF and former President of the Asian Triathlon Confederation.
Olympic Qualification Criteria: Kelly informed us that he needs to get the
qualification criteria to the NOC by the end of 2005 for their approval. We
stated that we would have a 2 year qualification period and that we’d get
our proposal to him by June 2005.

Winter Triathlon: We raised the question of having
Winter Triathlon on the programme of the Winter Olympic Games, which was met
with support. We need to increase the number of countries that participate
and the number of continents at the World Championships. ITU will ask Canada,
USA and Japan to send athletes to the Winter World Championships in Slovakia.

Sport Development Funding: The IF money that used
to be distributed by Olympic Solidarity is now under Kelly Fairweather and
the IOC Sport Department. We discussed our new Sport Development department
and plans to put $1,000,000us of our Olympic television money back into sport
development. Kelly seemed very impressed with this effort and with our 4 year
strategic plan. We will be eligible for sport development funds from the IOC.
The submission of our plan must be in to the IOC by March.

Official Opening of ITU Office In Vancouver: Kelly
will be in Vancouver 5 - 7 April at which time he has agreed to attend a formal
opening of the new ITU office.

Bob Fasulo, Director ASOIF: We met with Bob in the ASOIF
office and reviewed our progress since the Vancouver Congress.